


Bertie's Letters

by Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Flash Fic, Letters, M/M, Pining, Septuple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28039539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine/pseuds/Fluxit_Aqua_et_Sanguine
Summary: Infinity lives in letters.
Relationships: Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Bertie's Letters

**Author's Note:**

> Dudes, my summary and all is WAY TOO pretentious-sounding for something as small and cheesy as this.
> 
> Oh well! Wrote this quickly in an hour or so. Have had the idea rattling around in my brain for a long time. Kind of liked it. Might expand sometime. Who knows?
> 
> Readings and comments are always appreciated!

It has oft been reported that Wooster, Bertram Wilberforce, last of the Wooster line and heir to a title of some import, is a bit of a loony.

Generally-speaking, this is the attitude taken by some prospective father-in-law or other after said Wooster has at last seen sense and needs to gingerly work his way out of the grasp of a thoroughly unsuitable female; sometimes, it has been the attitude of the constabulary after they’ve fished him out of a night of Euripidean revelry. There have been times, even, when I suspect that the subtle smirk at the corner of a certain inimitable manservant’s rosy lips has been his own little nod to the streak of madness lying almost-dormant within the young master.

Given the resounding cries of the above-referenced public, you may well be disposed towards an unfavorable opinion of Bertram Wooster. “Chuck him away in a secluded corner of the funny farm!” I hear you cry—well, dear reader, I’m here to let you know that the populace at large has greatly exaggerated. Why, most of the impressions of madness have emerged from cold, calculated endeavors; masterly plans concocted by a mighty and a slightly-less-mighty brain working in tandem to bring about a desired result and lacking in the meanest hint of truth about what lies inside the Wooster coconut. I do not keep scores of cats in my bedroom on a regular basis. I do not lie behind my living room sofa, alternating between naps and violent gibbering. I do not, as some will allege, go around covered in flour moaning about the indignity of the world to the first unlucky chap to cross my path.

There is a peculiarity I will freely admit to, however (and it may shock you to know that it has nothing to do with aunts, fiancées or moggies:) I’ve never opened a single one of the letters addressed to me from my valet, one R. Jeeves. Not a one.

Now, some of you—many of you, if I were to wager a guess—will take this fact as an utter mystery. Some of you will consider this irrational behavior to be the most ‘ir-’ of all the possible behaviors to which the word ‘rational’ might be accepted as a part. Well, if you’ll hold tight through Bertram’s ravings for just a moment more, I’ll clue you in: Infinity, you see, lives in letters.

I can’t say that I know whence the phrase comes. It must be one of Jeeves’ wheezes, I suppose, or else one of the poets’ he’s got stashed away inside the no-doubt cramped environs of his head. But, anyhow, it’s true: An epistle from my man to another might contain anything at all, from a simple report of the day’s events to a truly life-changing treatise of more than a page. There might be a confession of a kind, even.

So, I’ve never so much as opened an envelope addressed from Jeeves, preferring the infinite ideal to the reality of the thing. Granted, this has landed me in a bit of trouble a time or two, what with my occasional missing of a bronzed and fit specimen of valethood floating in on an early return from his yearly holiday, or being caught totally unawares by a sitch that was outlined and brewing between the lines of a letter. I or Jarvis or the mailman had misplaced the envelope, I’ve always said. An envelope that _somehow_ managed to sneak its way, never to be recovered, into Bertram’s writing desk drawer. (The one with the lock, don’t you know.)

The practice has never inconvenienced me or anyone else very much. There are other methods by which the modern man might communicate, after all: the telephone, the telegram; illimitable other ‘tele-’services. I’ve never missed _very_ much in ignoring the score or so missives I’ve received over the years.

But what have I gained? A drawer full of letters. A drawer full of envelopes and papers. A drawer full of words written in Jeeves’ fine, sure script, touched over and over again by his pen and the skin of his hand. A drawer full of promises; pages and pages of warmth, of mutual affection, of... love.


End file.
